Mumbai, October 1: Mahindra & Mahindra and Ford Motor Co. on Tuesday entered into a joint venture in India valued at $275 million to produce and sell vehicles in the country. Mahindra & Mahindra tweeted about the major announcement with the US-based auto company. Vehicles produced as part of the joint venture will also be exported to emerging markets. Negotiations between both the companies were going on for a couple of months before they reached to an agreement. The joint venture will become operational in 2020.

Mahindra & Mahindra, in a tweet said, “We are proud to announce our joint venture with @Ford. With Ford’s technological leadership & our keen understanding of the Indian market, we are confident that this JV will deliver value & excellence to our stakeholders across the world, enabling them to #Rise. @FordIndia” The company also shared a video of Anand Mahindra, Chaiman of Mahindra Group explaining about the joint venture. 2019 Mahindra XUV300 Clocks Over 13000 Bookings in Just One Month of Launch.

Mahindra & Mahindra's Tweet:

Anand Mahindra's Tweet:

Shortly after the announcement of the joint venture, Anand Mahindra tweeted, " The marvel of modern technology allowed us to do a joint press conference alongside Bill Ford, Chairman & Jim Hackett, CEO of Ford Motor. Of course, tech couldn't solve the time zone challenge so a big thank you to Bill & Jim for trekking to office in Detroit so early!"

Ford will have a 49 percent share in the joint venture while M&M will take the remaining 51 percent stake in the new entity. One of the clauses in the deal states that Ford will transfer its assets of automotive and employees in India to Mahindra. Ford has two manufacturing plants in India. The plants are located in Chennai in Southern India and the other in Sanand in Gujarat. The capacity of the plants combined was a total of 4,40,000 vehicles.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 01, 2019 09:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).